We had a great time in San Antonio, thanks to all of you! We sure appreciate how patient everyone was with the lines. That’s the (only) downside to developers doing demos: We are really freaking proud of our games, and we all want to show you every detail. Keeping to ten minutes is the hardest thing about the show, hands down.

Media demos are longer, fortunately. The reporters get twenty minutes to explore, shoot footage, and ask questions so that everyone not at PAX can get all the juicy details. If you weren’t there to get your own hands-on time…or either of the epic collectible Pinny Arcade Pins…check out the following!

APGNation came by and recorded a nice long State of Decay interview with SOD Lead Designer Geoffrey Card.

Bitch Team Alpha declared Moonrise her top game for casual players: “After playing it once, I couldn’t stop talking about it.”

Capii Media wasn’t media. They were the guys who ran the photo booth where Moonrise players could “picture themselves in the game,” but in between green screen shenanigans, they shot this fun highlight reel. Includes shots from both SOD and Moonrise!

Our forum crew that attended got their own State of Decay media demo, and ThatChristmasKid brought a legal pad with pages of questions from our regular players. Don’t miss the resulting Q&A!

Gamespot gave us our favorite headline to date about Moonrise, and this awesome quote: “The mobile creature collecting-and-battling RPG takes some of the series more prominent elements and turns them on their heads, making for an enjoyable, refreshing take on the genre.”

One of the guys from Geek Avengers wrote up his experience on his personal blog, explaining why people should care about YOSE. “What I want to tell you about right now is what I think was the game of the show…I’m not a tech jargon expert, but it looked fantastic and plays beautifully. Zombie heads pop like melons in beautifully rendered HD. Running over the undead is just as satisfying as ever.” He also got a bit of the story from how the original game came to be.

As the site name would suggest, Hardcore Gamer was all about the PVP in Moonrise, with lots of detail about the fighting system. They also saw State of Decay, of course: “When games were trying to emulate the lightning-in-a-bottle co-op experience…Undead Labs released a solely single-player, story-driven experience devoted to depicting survival in a zombie wasteland.”

Before Massively disappears forever (BOO! HISS!), check out their double feature on both Moonrise and State of Decay: “It was a little jarring to go from adorable pet battles to being torn in half by a zombie, but the two-for-one session provided a nice glimpse of where Undead Labs has been and where it intends to go.”

MMORPG.com swung by, and they were pleasantly surprised by Moonrise: “It…could be ideal for someone looking for a little more depth in their mobile gaming than what’s generally available now.”

PixelDynamo gives us the tagline “Reanimated for a new generation” and gets into all the YOSE details.

Windows Central did a solid overview of State of Decay: “If you haven’t played the game, prepare for a fairly realistic depiction of human life after a zombie apocalypse.”

This list is really a work in progress. We had plenty of other interviews at the show, and I’ll update this list as I get the links.

So…who’s going to PAX East in a month? Contact me at sanya at undeadlabs dot com if you’ve got a website, YouTube channel, or Twitch stream.

Has it really been three weeks since PAX ended? It seems like just yesterday Drew Hobson (the voice of Marcus) was cheerfully saying “niiiiiiiice” on request, and revealing his other role on State of Decay. J.L. Bourne was only a few hours ago signing autographs in our booth and telling stories during the Superfan prize dinner. I feel like we were just standing in a crowded room, telling people that as a matter of fact you’ll be able to play as Sasquatch in the Year One edition of State of Decay. And it sure feels like I was very recently sitting on a convention center floor scribbling notes, while over my head Jeff and Foge were designing a PVP tournament for Moonrise.

Brant isn’t in the picture because he’s taking the picture, but what you’re seeing is the Superfan celebration. We are the luckiest game company on earth, I have to tell you. Our Superfans were supposed to be treated like royalty in return for all they’ve done…and instead they did more. They met us at the crack of dawn at the company HQ to load boxes. They helped set up the booth. And even though they had four day badges to see the show, every time I turned around one of them was doing a demo of the game for new players. (Our Negnar did step away from the Undead Labs area long enough to try out the new game, and he wrote up his experiences here.) I hope they had as much fun as we did. I mean, we are grateful to all of you for being part of the community, and meeting some of you in person is SUCH a thrill.

Speaking of meeting in person, here’s Drew! He signed shirts and hats and recited any line you wanted. “Niiiiiiiice” was a popular request. As befits a guy who is a professional DJ as well as a voice actor, Drew was the life of the party. It was great watching people come up to talk about the game, and then realize that “Marcus” was standing right there. What they didn’t know, and Drew was able to reveal, is that he’s also the voice of Sasquatch. Sasquatch, who will be a playable character sometime early next spring. We’ll be working with Drew until Hollywood comes calling for this guy.

Fans of J.L. Bourne (he whose novels were such an inspiration to us during the development of State of Decay), you will be glad to hear that he is EXACTLY the guy you want beside you if the apocalypse happens. He doesn’t just spin a pretty story. He thinks tactically at all times. It was an education watching him make plans and contingency plans, and more than once I got a little shiver and thought, boy, glad we’re on the same side. He’s also a hard worker, thoughtful, honest, and damned funny. We are so lucky to have him working on the future of the game. Wish I could talk about that future…

In the immediate future of State of Decay, and what we can talk about, is the Year One Survival Edition, which I would really like everyone to abbreviate on Twitter as “YOSE” instead of the cringeworthy “YO.” Seriously, if you could please hook me up, I will pay you back at the first State of Decay live event. Drinks, swag, something. Okay, moving on. Although we weren’t ready to show it at PAX, we did talk about it at our press event the night before the show. Major Nelson made a horror movie about it. Gamespot saw it in person. So did Ten Ton Hammer. Some bigsites wrote about it. And it wouldn’t have been a media event without some of the writers who’ve been there since the beginning.

Highlights include, but are not limited to: Remastered in 1080p. New mission type (“Cleo Drops” – military looking crates that contain rare and powerful goodies…but they seem to attract a hell of a lot of zombies). New playable Heroes from Lifeline — Hawkes, Kilo, Vance, and Sasquatch. New SUV, new weapons, new music. The facility goodies (snacks, ammo) from Lifeline will be retrofitted into the whole game. And to be honest, we’re not done.

YOSE will bundle all of the DLC into this package, to make THE definitive version of State of Decay. This generation of it, anyway. We’re still talking about ways to thank those of you who bought the original game but might want to upgrade, so, stay tuned.

And of course, there was Moonrise. PAX was our first chance to see real players interacting with our alpha build. As you regulars know, our PAX booths are never staffed with temps or marketing people. Every demo is given by someone who is actively working on the game, and really, REALLY cares if you’re having a good time. So, this show was big for us.

With fourteen demo stations, we figured the line would move so fast that there wouldn’t be a chance for much of a line to form. We were…pleasantly surprised. We were freaking delighted when one of the PAX people came over with a roll of tape to mark out where the overflow could go — around two sides of our booth! — without pissing off the fire marshal.

And then there was the line on the OTHER side of the booth for the tournament. After the show started, Jeff and Foge (the Design Director, BTW, you’ll be hearing more from him soon) looked at each other. They had a gleam in their respective eyes that I have learned means nothing but trouble. “Man, people don’t get to the PVP during the demo. That’s the best part,” one of them said. One thing led to another, until I was sitting on the floor of the booth taking notes while they worked out the rules. At the end I held out my notebook. Jeff took a picture of the page and disappeared. He came back a few hours later with two posters, four iPad Airs for prizes, and a few thousand postcards with the rules.

The tournament was EPIC. Nothing is more fun than PVP. Check out the pictures on the Moonrise Facebook page. And if you don’t believe it happened just the way I’ve described:

As usual with our games, Moonrise is damned hard to boil down to a simple slogan. Early next month we’ll start a series of design articles that will show you what all went into crafting this beauty, and I’ll post a more complete press roundup next week. This post is already crazy long, so in addition to Negnar’s post, for now you can start with MMORPG: “[C]heck out Moonrise, a real-time combat RPG that really made the obsessive compulsive gamer collector in me get excited.” And hey, why not GamersInBeta: “Besides the intuitive game play, what was most impressive about the title was how quickly you forgot about the medium you were playing on as you were so immersed in the story and action.”

If you want the news as it happens, be sure to follow us on our various social media things. We’re @undeadlabs on Twitter. We’re cleverly disguised over at Facebook. Although we don’t have the State of Decay tags on either Facebook or Twitter, we share the Moonrise tags with the people at Kabam: @moonrisemobile and http://facebook.com/moonrisemobile.

Please do keep track of us. We have something really neat to celebrate with you in the near future, and I don’t want you miss any of the fun.

Moonrise is a multiplayer creature-collection RPG for mobile devices, conceived and developed here at the Lab and published by Kabam. It’s a fun romp through a gorgeous 3D world of ancient ruins and magical creatures, with deep, real-time strategic combat, full character and creature customization, and real-time online play with your friends.

You can read more about Moonrise and our partnership with Kabam in the Moonrise announcement press release, and at the game website at moonrise-game.com. We’ll also be showing the beta build of Moonrise off at PAX Prime in Seattle at the end of this month, so look for more information about the game and release details then.

Like everyone at the Lab, I’m intensely excited about Moonrise. It’s a game that embodies the same passion and spirit we poured into our first game, State of Decay. But alongside that excitement, I’m also very aware that this is a surprise to everyone who has been following the Lab for the last few years. What does it mean for us to be releasing a game that isn’t State of Decay?

But those things — particularly when they’re big things — require time; for planning and design, for R&D and new technologies, for business and contract discussions, for new platforms to mature, and for a whole host of things that need to get done before you can unleash a full, chomping-at-the-bit game development team. So while the core State of Decay team continued to work on those things after the release of the game last summer, we built another team to take on a new project we’d been thinking about, which became Moonrise.

I’ve used the phrase ‘gaming omnivores’ to describe our personal gaming tastes at the Lab. You’ll find fans of every genre and platform here, and most of us love it all, provided it’s made with passion and respect for us as gamers. As game developers, we’re the same — omnivores. But just as we wanted to create a fresh take on the zombie genre with State of Decay, we wanted to create a fresh take on the creature RPG with Moonrise. As we’ll discuss in the coming weeks and months, Moonrise builds on the core foundation of collecting creature companions, with deeper team mechanics, real-time combat, a strong multiplayer core, and console-quality art and animation. And, of course, it’s playable on a device that most of us already have in our pockets or backpacks.

Moonrise is of course very different from State of Decay in many ways. It’s bright and colorful, it’s fantastical, and it’s on mobile. But despite those notable differences, you’ll also find that it’s very much an Undead Labs game, with a focus on systems-driven content, sophisticated progression mechanics, and a few bold design choices — such as strategic real-time combat — we think will result in a fresh gameplay experience. And, like every game we will ever make, Moonrise is a gamer-focused game, meaning it’s developed for people like us — passionate gamers who expect our time and money to be treated with respect. It’s also fully an Undead Labs game in terms of our complete commitment to the player community and long term support for the game. Moonrise is as much our baby as State of Decay, and babies needs lots of love and attention…

The success of State of Decay, and the opportunity we have to take it even further, is 100% because of you. Not just because you’re customers, but because you’re gamers. Real gamers. Not just casual fans of the latest big-budget shooter or pre-scripted action adventure (although those can be awfully fun too), but gamers who are passionate enough to try something new. You met the unexpected with a smile rather than a frown.

As we prepare to release Moonrise and continue development on the future of State of Decay, this is more true than ever. It’s been a pleasure building games for you so far, and I can’t wait to show you what we have in store for the future. On behalf of all of us at Undead Labs, thank you.

We are now live on both the Xbox 360 and Steam, and so far, it looks like everyone who knows about it is enjoying it. Thank you so much for your good wishes and good cheer all over the internet. It means everything to us.

Some of us are trying to be all chill about your reviews and tweets and posts. Some of us don’t have a cool bone in our bodies and we’re running around the internet like methed up ferrets, reading every word and watching every video.

Er… was that TMI?

But seriously, keeping cool when you’ve been waiting for this day for months is hard, and the best feeling in the world is when real people actually play it and LIKE it. These were the first four reviews to come in. Not cherry picked. Just the first four in my spreadsheet:

“Rather than adding a few hours onto the existing State of Decay narrative, the Lifeline expansion offers an entirely new campaign; one which is likely to take you more than one attempt (and quite a few hours) to complete successfully…I’m not sure there’s a zombie-survival game on the market (single or multiplayer) that currently holds a candle to the State of Decay franchise, and the Lifeline expansion only extends Undead Labs’ lead over its competitors.”

“What you can get in this DLC exceeds the price tag as it is intense, replayable, and overall a blast to play. If you were expecting just another version of Breakdown, you were wrong. What Lifeline feels like to me is the opposite of Breakdown and that isn’t even close to a flaw.”

“The new DLC seems more like a sequel built upon the same engine instead of just an add-on for State of Decay. Lifeline is a must for fans of Undead Lab’s zombie survival entry. Gamers who enjoy the genre and haven’t tried the game yet should really give it a shot as it remains one of last-gen’s best examples of zombie gaming.”

As with the original launch and Breakdown, the only advertising we have consists of these reviews, and more importantly, you telling your friends that the game was worth your time. If you like what you’ve seen so far, please spread the word that the game is out!

We are ON for tomorrow, everybody! The cost is $6.99, or whatever the rough equivalent is in your local currency (the Xbox/Steam does the math, not me). Who will be joining us?!?

What time?

Very early in the morning, Pacific time.

But what EXACT time?

Okay, for Xbox players, it doesn’t work exactly like that. The process will begin at 2 AM PDT/5 AM EDT/10 AM GMT (and for my Australians, 5 PM WST and 7 PM EST). However, the exact time it hits your local marketplace will vary, because the files have to move from server to server all around the world. So it may not hit precisely on the hour. Try to be patient.

For Steam players, Microsoft is going to push the button at 10 AM PDT/1 PM EDT/6 PM GMT (Australians, that’ll be 1 AM Saturday WST and 3 AM Saturday EST). Again, it may take a bit for your personal computer to see it.

In the meantime, reviewers have been putting up streams and posts. Keep an eye on our Twitter feed. I’m sharing links as they come in: @undeadlabs is where the party is all day tomorrow!

We didn’t anticipate the way this early pitch would get so many people excited, if you want to know the truth. State of Decay was included in a list of IPs presented for consideration, worlds that would make great entertainment. It’s not like that’s the only thing we have under discussion, either. We keep saying there’s all kinds of stuff behind the scenes, and this is just one of many, many ideas. When we say there’s a lot going on…we mean it.

We haven’t gone Hollywood, though. We’re focused on making games. Xbox Chief Phil Spencer said on Twitter just the other day, when someone asked him about State of Decay, that “SoD is important to [Microsoft]. @undeadlabs has a good plan for the franchise and it’s bigger than a DLC expansion.”

Right this minute, we havethatexpansion to get out the door. (Join us for the Lifeline live stream today at 11 AM PDT / 2 PM EDT / 6 PM GMT!) If anything does come of this live action thing, you know we’ll tell you when we know something for sure. Meanwhile, join us in the forum for an imaginary casting call. Dibs on Nathan Fillion! Or Chiwetel Ejiofor, Walton Goggins, Kerry Washington, Sarah Shahi…

We had an amazing time with Lifeline at PAX East two weeks ago. Everyone had a blast running around the new map, checking out the new characters and the new facilities, and getting the crap scared out of them while venturing into the underground street tunnels of Danforth.

The live game we played was hilarious. (If you missed me blathering about it before the show: All the jobs and hobbies in the game went into a hat. Each person waiting to do the demo picked one – doctor, sniper, TV watcher, cop, dentist, teacher, high school jock, etc. In order to enter a drawing to win a copy of Lifeline, you had to try and form a survivor enclave with your fellow demo survivors. In order to get a guaranteed win, your group needed at least one medically trained person, a weapons trained person, a construction trained person, and three to seven other people of any ability.) Total strangers were forming groups on the spot. People were camping the booth looking for the rare specialties.

My absolute favorite moment was when a big group of people had everyone except their medic. A nice couple came up behind them, and drew jobs. He got “paramedic.” She got “fisherman.” I couldn’t help it; I had to stir the pot. So I said to the man, “That group only needs a medic. So what are you going to do? If you go with them alone, you automatically survive the apocalypse. But you could tell them that the condition of taking you means making room for her.”

You could see him thinking. You could see HER thinking, “WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THIS!?”

But the existing group heard me. Remember, they weren’t friends. They’d just been thrown together by circumstance, people that happened to have a good spread of skills and talents. And you could see THEM thinking… “of course he’s going to want to bring his wife. Who are we going to kick out of the group so we can have the medic?”

It was completely awesome. It was like watching State of Decay coming to life.

(Then one of the original group members actually read the rules card, and shouted, “Wait, we only have eight people and we’re allowed to have up to ten! We have room for both of you!” and the moment passed with hilarity all around.)

But that was just what we did to kill time in line. Watching people play Lifeline was a huge moment for us. It was the first time players had their hands on it, and until you all have tried it out, we don’t really know how it’s going to go. If the PAX crowd was any indication, this is going great.

All we know for sure about launch right now is “early June” and “probably close to what Breakdown cost.” As for more game details, Geoffrey is in the middle of writing his next design article this one a good look at the new facilities and outposts. But if you can’t wait, what I have here is the most complete round up of PAX coverage that I could put together.

Massively/Joystiq:SoD Eyes Multiplayer; Stays Offline“While it’s broadly accurate to say that State of Decay is a template for an eventual MMO, the game has stood on its own and served as a very successful title.”

Ten Ton Hammer:Top Picks From Pax“What it is: A very worthy expansion to one of the best zombie apocalypse simulators on the planet
“What we saw at PAX: A complete rundown of what makes Lifeline tick, and why it isn’t just more landmass tacked onto the original game”

Xbox Gamer:Lifeline Preview“I had a smile on my face the whole time, as did Chris as he explained the game to me and watched me die a couple of times by hordes of zombies.”

If you’re still working on your post, podcast, or video, send me the link for inclusion here as soon as you’re done!

Did I miss any? What do you think about what you’ve read so far? Tell us in the forum by clicking the green tape.

I can’t talk about the future, but I can talk about the past. We’d like to shout out all the sites and writers who honored us with an inclusion in a 2013 summary/writeup/roundup/nomination/thing. Thank you for your time and talents, y’all.

I’m just one person and may have missed a few. If you know of an article or video featuring State of Decay that belongs here, post a link in the comment thread. And thanks again, everybody, for all of your own commentary. Being your personal game of the year was the highest honor we could get, and we sure do appreciate each one of you.

Thanks to everyone who slaved over a hot keyboard to get these reviews, previews, and playthroughs out today!

We are launching Breakdown (and the free TU4) on Friday, November 29th, all over the world. We’ll be on both Steam and XBLA. The price is $6.99, and that should convert automatically into your own local currency. For those of you making up your mind on what you’re doing on Friday, and don’t mind potential spoilers, I hope this information is helpful. There won’t be any ads to entice you, no hype campaign to get you riled up. This DLC is going to stand or fall entirely on how interested you are (and whether you think it’s good enough to tell your friends about it).

Keep an eye on the forums and our social media channels for fun contests and general shenanigans to celebrate the launch of Breakdown.

If you didn’t already see the news out of Microsoft headquarters, we’re having an exciting day. (The banner might have given it away.) You can follow the link there for the official version, or you can hit the highlights right here:

- Yes, you guys took us over the half million mark. Actually, that milestone is SO last Friday, Jeff says. Now we’re over the 550,000 mark. We still don’t know what to say besides thank you for your encouragement and support. We didn’t know what to expect, so your continuing enthusiasm is humbling.

– Yes, it’s your feedback that helps us to determine the priorities in the Title Updates, and #2 is in the early phase of certification.

– Yes, when we release on PC, it will be via Steam. Date still TBD.

– And yes, Jeff DID just drop the sandbox mode bomb. We’re working on a pure sandbox mode for State of Decay, in large part because you asked for it. Again, the date is TBD, but we wanted you all to know it was coming.